I'm sure some of the better coaches can answer this better, but in the "old days" there was a better selection of top tier recruits. This meant that after the ACC, and then the other Big-6 conferences, gorged themselves on this talent, there were better players left over for the mid majors (one and two stars). This led to teams like Southern and Cleveland State winning the NT tournament.

WIS decided to make the top tier players BETTER, but then limit the number of them. I don't know what their thinking was at the time, but all this did was make the better teams better still. It also reduced (to virtually nill) the chances of a mid or lower level DiV I being able to recruit a truly great player. While this still occurs on occasion, the results are easy to see. The Big-6 conferences got better, the eastern leagues including the Big East and A-10 that had to "compete" for the recruits on the east coast all emptied out as the mid level coaches tried to get as far away from ACC land as possible. This has even allowed (with hard work) the WCC to suppliant the SEC and the Big East as a Big-6 conference in Allen, because SEC teams continually get the leftovers after the ACC has drank from the trough (or lose battles with the cash rich ACC...aided by money from the PIT they should never get for sending 10-17 teams to the tourney).

While the coaches in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and the PAC-10 are truly the elite coaches, they benefit from knowing that any recruit they want (which, of course, will be the best ones), they can get. The mid and lower level DivI teams simply do not have the prestige (and have a hard time raising their prestige with the Big 6 conferences going to the PIT with losing records) nor the money (that goes to the Big 6 teams with losing records that are allowed in the PIT) to be able to compete with the Big-6 conferences.

So it sounds like a which do you prefer: A. Each world being more like real life in having the Big-6 teams generally at the top. or B. Any school (big or small) could be a perennial power?

Personally I like having simular to real life and having the traditional big schools at the top (I don't really enjoy seeing Southern, Cleveland St, Dayton, Etc winning tittles). However, WIS may have over-corrected making it fairly difficult to have a Gonzaga-like team at the lower levels.

There are a lot of curious head-scratching decision that WIS makes. Personally, I think the folks actually working on the game (not the mucky-mucks in charge) are 1) understaffed, 2) not knowledgable about the product (customer service), and 3) have too much on their plate to actually sit down and fix things. Every little thing is connected, so when you change something (recruiting, for instance) it seems that sometimes it has unintended consequences that were not forseen. Now what do you do? You are already into it with time and $ to have made the change. Do you un-do it? Do you "patch" to take care of the unintended consequences? Do you just let the clients paying for the service complain because you are too understaffed to actually figure out a fix that won't have other unintended consequences? It's a tough decision for them, and we players just have to make a personal decision on how many "bad things" to accept to keep on paying to play the game.

Posted by smackawits on 5/22/2013 2:17:00 PM (view original):I'm sure some of the better coaches can answer this better, but in the "old days" there was a better selection of top tier recruits. This meant that after the ACC, and then the other Big-6 conferences, gorged themselves on this talent, there were better players left over for the mid majors (one and two stars). This led to teams like Southern and Cleveland State winning the NT tournament.

WIS decided to make the top tier players BETTER, but then limit the number of them. I don't know what their thinking was at the time, but all this did was make the better teams better still. It also reduced (to virtually nill) the chances of a mid or lower level DiV I being able to recruit a truly great player. While this still occurs on occasion, the results are easy to see. The Big-6 conferences got better, the eastern leagues including the Big East and A-10 that had to "compete" for the recruits on the east coast all emptied out as the mid level coaches tried to get as far away from ACC land as possible. This has even allowed (with hard work) the WCC to suppliant the SEC and the Big East as a Big-6 conference in Allen, because SEC teams continually get the leftovers after the ACC has drank from the trough (or lose battles with the cash rich ACC...aided by money from the PIT they should never get for sending 10-17 teams to the tourney).

While the coaches in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and the PAC-10 are truly the elite coaches, they benefit from knowing that any recruit they want (which, of course, will be the best ones), they can get. The mid and lower level DivI teams simply do not have the prestige (and have a hard time raising their prestige with the Big 6 conferences going to the PIT with losing records) nor the money (that goes to the Big 6 teams with losing records that are allowed in the PIT) to be able to compete with the Big-6 conferences.

Wow, not sure if some satire is flying over my head, but that is the most bitter view on division 1 recruiting I have ever seen (especially all the PI stuff. Seriously, taking big 6 teams out of the PI will not solve the weak mid-major problem). I'll do my best to explain the problem in my following post.

EDIT: The part about BCS coaches getting whoever they want is just so false it boggles my mind.

Posted by joeykw18 on 5/22/2013 2:37:00 PM (view original):So it sounds like a which do you prefer: A. Each world being more like real life in having the Big-6 teams generally at the top. or B. Any school (big or small) could be a perennial power?

Personally I like having simular to real life and having the traditional big schools at the top (I don't really enjoy seeing Southern, Cleveland St, Dayton, Etc winning tittles). However, WIS may have over-corrected making it fairly difficult to have a Gonzaga-like team at the lower levels.

In the on-going Smith tournament, the Big-6 schools are 25-5 vs. the mid-majors. And it's not even close. The average winning margin in those 25 games is 16.5 and only two of them have been decided by fewer than 5 points. Three of the 5 mid-major wins were by the same team, which then lost by 25 in their next game.

By comparison, in the 2013 NCAA tourney, the Big-6 was 19-10 vs. the mid-majors

Posted by smackawits on 5/22/2013 2:51:00 PM (view original):There are a lot of curious head-scratching decision that WIS makes. Personally, I think the folks actually working on the game (not the mucky-mucks in charge) are 1) understaffed, 2) not knowledgable about the product (customer service), and 3) have too much on their plate to actually sit down and fix things. Every little thing is connected, so when you change something (recruiting, for instance) it seems that sometimes it has unintended consequences that were not forseen. Now what do you do? You are already into it with time and $ to have made the change. Do you un-do it? Do you "patch" to take care of the unintended consequences? Do you just let the clients paying for the service complain because you are too understaffed to actually figure out a fix that won't have other unintended consequences? It's a tough decision for them, and we players just have to make a personal decision on how many "bad things" to accept to keep on paying to play the game.

You're painting an extremely negative view of an extremely fun game Honestly, the biggest problem mid-majors have is the lack of human coaches. If you keep spouting extreme negativity, you're potentially hurting the game. Instead of blasting WIS, how about we try to be constructive?

don't misunderstand me either, kimble. I enjoy getting up in the morning to see how I did. I quit for a while and came back because I missed the game. I am not "blasting" WIS, I am empathetic that they have a very tough job. Slow down and read my posts again.

Posted by smackawits on 5/22/2013 3:00:00 PM (view original):I agree with you that the biggest problem is lack of coaches. Why are there a lack of coaches in low-mid level DivI? Why is Div II better populated?

several coaches have quit D1 and gone back to D2. The primary reason is the lack of competitivness at D1

Recruit Generation before the last major change produced many recruits who were 99s in all their core categories. There were just too many elite players that the sweet 16 teams would all be identical with 99 core players everywhere. This needed to be changed for a more interesting game to be played.

When they made the change, they did accomplish not have that many 99 core players. One of the goals, which I thought was a good one, was to try to create a few "super recruits", your Carmelos, Durants, etc. They didn't quite accomplish this, but I do think this would be a nice addition to the game (perhaps 1 or 2 super recruits, 1 and done's, every season). There have been complaints that there aren't enough high potential mid-tier players out there for mid-majors to develop for 4 years and have them turn into solid players. I think this has been over-stated and that there are more out there than most mid-major coaches realize, but I do think adding some more high-potential low-rated players to the mix that could turn into great players would benefit mid-majors.

There are two other things holding mid-majors back that are not talked about as much.
1) Coach talent- Generally there is far more coaching talent in the major conferences. These major conferences are more desireable, in part because of recruiting money, but mostly because of higher baseline prestige. Higher baseline prestige makes it far easier to sustain a winning program. If you look at the most talented coaches in D1, they're probably coaching at major schools (not B baseline BCS schools, but A- and higher) because they want to win national championships and those are the schools that give them the best chance. If you look at their coaching resumes, most of them didn't spend that long at mid-majors because they were able to have pretty quick success and move to better jobs. D1 recruiting is brutal and you better have a really good plan, be very observant of the other teams, and be very smart in general if you want to succeed at that level. If you're recruiting against a bunch of people who are more experienced and have the advantage of a higher prestige (what you will be doing at a mid-major), you better be a damn good recruiter to have a good mid-major school. This is the same as real life and I don't see any reason why it should be any different. Building a good program at a mid-major is super hard in real life and you have to be a great coach to do it, just like here. If some great coach (or coaches) decide they are going to stay at a mid-major for a long time and not move up, they can be very successful (There are many examples out there, the best one is lostmyth at St. Bonnie's (I think).

2) Empty Conferences- Empty conferences not only hurt the conf $$ situation, they also hurt mid-majors in terms of scheduling because there are a bunch of games that, even if they win, mean nothing. This is also similar to real life. If a conference of coaches gets together in a mid-major conf, they can be successful (A10 in some worlds, WCC in some worlds, Ivy in some worlds).

Honestly, I think the talent of coaches is a much bigger factor in mid-major (lack of) success than anybody talks about and blaming it on recruit generation, which I think is actually pretty good (not perfect, but appropriately challenging), makes me a little frustrated.

Posted by smackawits on 5/22/2013 3:00:00 PM (view original):I agree with you that the biggest problem is lack of coaches. Why are there a lack of coaches in low-mid level DivI? Why is Div II better populated?

several coaches have quit D1 and gone back to D2. The primary reason is the lack of competitivness at D1

IMO, these coaches couldn't cut it in low D1, they weren't good enough, so they went back to D2 where they had a better shot at winning.